Chapter 1 #2
She plugged in the shaver and moved it carefully around his fingers on his chin. She knew it was hurting. “Looks deep.”
“He was wearing a ring.”
“Not by accident, I bet.” She finished and set the shaver down. “Thanks, Gringo. That could’ve been my face.”
“De nada.”
“But don’t let it happen again.”
He looked confused as he cleaned the wound with alcohol wipes and dabbed on ointment, leaning over the counter closer to the mirror, his head tipped up to focus on his chin. Then he applied the butterflies like it wasn’t his first time and covered them with a bigger adhesive strip.
“There.” He sat back.
“Yeah, not quite.” She nodded at the mirror. He looked again.
He had uneven stubble everywhere except his chin.
“I see what you mean,” he said, and then he reached for the razor, leaned over the sink, and resumed shaving.
When he finished, he turned to face her, running a hand down his cheek and grinning. When a dimple appeared, she could’ve sworn she heard the sound of a bullet ricocheting off stone inside her head.
Ohmygod that jawline, and that cleft in his poor, wounded chin.
“That feels good,” he said, smoothing his cheek. “Glad you made me do that.”
“Yeah, well…” She looked around for something to use to defend herself against the onslaught of whatever this was. She was a little bit light-headed, a little bit giddy, and a whole lot turned on—had been, right along, but she knew better.
She wanted to be sheriff of Quinn County one day. She couldn’t be playing around with an ex-con who was the sole heir to a dead crime boss’s ill-gotten wealth.
Up to now, she’d been keeping her distance from Jeremiah Thorne. But she’d felt something ever since she’d hit him with her pickup. And whatever it was, it had just taken a turn for the worse.
Looking around the small room as if for rescue, she spotted the tall skinny closet where the towels were stacked, opened it, and took the broom and dustpan from their hooks. She handed them to Jeremiah. “You’d best clean up all this hair or Lily’ll have our hides for bar rags.”
Then she left him there. But that face—sans beard—and its knowing expression were burned into her mind. That slight smile, and the twinkle of mischief in eyes so blue they sizzled…
She never should have made him shave.
Jeremiah watched Willow Brand walk out of the bathroom. She even looked good in her uniform pants, the least flattering pants ever invented.
If he’d known how much she would like him shaved, he’d have been bare-faced this whole time. She was something, Willow Brand. Her mother was full Comanche, her father, half. Her skin was dark, like her eyes and her hair.
It was good that she liked him. He could use that. He needed her help, and it would be best if giving it was her idea.
He cleaned up the mess of his whiskers on the floor and in the sink and left the place looking as good as he’d found it. When he headed down to pay his tab, Willow was already gone.
He frowned because there was a kid sitting on a barstool. He had dark curly hair and looked to be ten or so.
Jeremiah sidled up to the bar between the kid’s stool and the one beside it, and signaled Cat. She held up a finger.
“I didn’t know I had to wave,” the kid said.
He had a spray of freckles across his nose. “Oh, yeah,” Jeremiah said. “Otherwise she might never spot you. You must be new here.”
“I never came in before. But at school everyone says the tacos are the best.”
“They are, I can vouch for that.”
“I made some money doing odd jobs after school. So I thought I’d surprise Grandma by bringing home tacos for all of us.” He looked toward Cat, then back at Jeremiah.
“I bet that’ll make your grandma very happy. You’re a good kid.”
“It’s to thank her. She’s letting me get a puppy!”
Cat finally arrived. Jeremiah said, “You go first, young—what’s your name?”
“Frankie Miller.” He thrust out a hand.
“Jeremiah,” he said, shaking that scrawny little hand. It felt like it’d break if he squeezed it too hard. “Go ahead, Frankie. Place your order.”
“I need enough tacos for me, Grandma, Grandpa, Sadie and Sally.” He put his little hand into his jeans pocket and pulled out three crumpled singles and a fistful of change.
Cat sneaked a sad look Jeremiah’s way. He shook his head and pointed to his chest, mouthing, “I got it.” Then aloud, “Wait a minute, wait a minute. Isn’t today’s special first-timers eat free?”
“Right! Cat said. “You can pocket that cash, kid, you lucked out today. I’ll go put that order in.”
“I’m ready to cash out when you come back, Cat,” Jeremiah said. Then he turned around and leaned back against the bar, watching the people come and go.
So far, coming here to the town of Quinn in Quinn County, Texas had panned out better than he could’ve hoped.
He’d found his brother from another mother, Ethan, who’d accepted him unquestioningly.
Insane. The guy was hitting it big in country music.
He ought to be more careful. He hadn’t even run a background check on him, far as he knew, just took everything Jeremiah said at face value.
He’d told the truth. Not all of it, but he hadn’t pretended to be anything other than what he was. An ex-con raised by crooks. Ethan seemed to like him for some reason.
Beside him, the kid had turned his stool around and was leaning back against the bar, just like Jeremiah was.
His lips pulled at the corners. “So you live with your grandma? Huh?”
“Yeah. My mom died and my dad’s in jail.”
That poked him in the heart. He’d could’ve said the very same thing at Frankie’s age.
“You guys live here in the Bend?” Jeremiah asked.
“Nah, back in Quinn.” The kid spun the stool around again when Cat returned with two large bags of tacos and fixings and handed them over.
He smiled, slid off his stool, and all but ran for the door, yelling, “Nice to meet ‘cha, Jeremiah,” like an afterthought just before he went out.
He got into a car with an old fellow behind the wheel Jeremiah guessed must be his grandfather.
Since nothing more interesting than what had already occurred was likely to happen at Two Lilies that night, Jeremiah paid for his drinks and the kid’s tacos, and drove his Jeep back to Quinn, where he was shacking up at the bunkhouse on the Texas Brand.
His newfound brother’s adopted family were kind, welcoming, and trusting.
If he were anyone else, he could’ve robbed them blind.
And if they were anyone else, he might have.
But they were his brother’s family. If they had their way, they’d be his family, too.
He didn’t want a family, though. He’d never really had one, never really wanted one.
It wasn’t like he’d spent nights lying awake in his room in his father’s mansion, staring at the ceiling through tears, aching for a normal life, for his mom to be alive and beautiful and happy, not broken, devastated, and lost like she’d been when she’d left him there and driven away into oblivion.
It wasn’t like that at all.
Willow Brand liked him. Maybe she wanted him, too. Sure seemed that way before she’d left the bathroom. The way she’d run her hands over his face while trimming his beard. The way she’d run her eyes over it afterward. The totally turned on and slightly panicked look in them.
Hell, it had turned him on, too. Nothing wrong with that, as long as he got what he needed from her.
His old man had hidden eight pounds of solid gold somewhere in Quinn, Texas before he’d gone to prison for the rest of his days.
He’d mentioned it a few times, written about it in the diary he’d kept his first year in prison.
It had been sent along with the old man’s other possessions to Jeremiah, the listed next of kin, when he’d died.
But there’d been zero elaboration. No details.
At today’s prices, eight pounds of gold would be worth way over half a million dollars. And Jeremiah was damn well going to find it.
The smoking hot Willow Brand just might have the connections to help him.